In the Skies Once More

We've have been blogging a lot recently, but sometimes news happens that's too good not to share!

11 days ago a shiny new engine arrived.

The engineers got to work, preparing everything for installation.

It was good to see an engine attached to the front of the plane again.

So good that passengers were excited enough to take photos of the new engine. The aircraft has been sorely missed by us and our partners during the last 5 months!

On Thursday we did some engine runs to make sure everything was working properly.

On Friday it was ready for a flight test...

Today (Saturday) I took to the skies and did some training, ready for our base checks next week (a six monthly assessment MAF require us to do). It was nice to be back in the left hand seat again.

Our Garden

We are often asked what Matt and Bethan do while Becki is flying (or in the office). Well they spend a lot of time in the garden, with Matt building things and Bethan playing with/on them. The garden looks a lot different now to when we first looked around the house. Matt and the gardeners have worked very hard!

Here are the "before and after" photos:

Before we agreed to move in, we wanted the front garden cleared...

There is a house in there somewhere!

Now it's much less overgrown

Removing the structure on the front of the house has made it a lot lighter inside!

The front garden had a large wooden structure overgrown with plants - apparently the previous tenant used it for karaoke nights.

The proprietor arranged for everything to be removed, including the ceramic tiled bar at the far end!

Now there is room to run around!

There used to be a building here, on the side of the house, which the previous tenant removed, just leaving a lot of mud and some steps..

Now the grass is slowly growing and at the end we left some mud for Bethan to play with and built Bethan a table for her "cooking"

The top end of the mud.

which is now a sandpit and balance beam

At the front was an overgrown hedged garden. It looked better after the gardeners had trimmed it but..

 we decided the space could be better used for a herb circle and key hole vegetable garden (which is square rather than round but hopefully it will still work)

 Ledadaky and the Dahalo

On Monday, a call came in asking for a medevac from Ankavandra. The details were a little hazy but we knew it was for a gunshot victim, with the bullet having travelled through the mouth. The man would be accompanied by some family members but we were unsure if any medical staff would be available to join the flight. Having a doctor on board means they can inform us if there are any complications that would stop us flying or restrict our altitude to maintain constant air pressure. God's timing is perfect and just as the Caravan was being prepared for the flight, in walked Dr Sylvain - a doctor who regularly joins us for our “Medical Safaris”. Thankfully he was willing to come along for the ride! This was a double blessing as he could also act as a translator in a region where little French is spoken.

The river between Ankavandra and the airfield

  Flying to Ankavandra, which is 144 miles from Tana, took 52 minutes. Located beside the river at the base of the high plateau, the area looked beautiful as we flew in. In the hot, dusty conditions on the ground it was a different story. Ankavandra is located in one of the 'zones rouges', where police and security are scarce and the Dahalo (cattle thieves) roam freely. The larger groups of Dahalo have assault rifles to protect their herds of stolen cattle. Ledadaky had fallen foul of the Dahalo that day. The bullet knocked out his bottom teeth and left a path of destruction from his cheek, down his neck. He had been carried to the village of Ankavandra, where his face was patched up and then a further 3 miles to the airstrip on the other side of the river.

Armed men, protection for carrying money

Ledadaky being assisted to walk to the plane

Ledadaky, his family members and some armed men (protection as they were carrying money for the flight and hospital fees) arrived at the airfield. Ledadaky's family then boarded the aircraft with some cooking pots and bags of rice that they had brought with them, and Josh strapped Ledadaky into the on-board stretcher. Your family must provide food for you while you stay in hospital and rice is more expensive here than where they live in the bush, so they came prepared! We flew back to Tana, arriving shortly before sunset and the patient was soon strapped into the waiting ambulance and taken to hospital.

Strapped into the Cessna 208 ready for the flight to Antananarivo

On the ground at Ivato Airport, Antananarivo

The journey to the ambulance was nice and short 

To Ranomafana (and back)

5R-AAD, the Cessna 182 that I fly is still without an engine. A new engine is currently being built in France and hopefully it will be ready to ship to us in May. In the meantime we decided to use up some holiday and explore some of Madagascar.

Traveller's Palm 

Bethan was not impressed with a 4 hour car journey to Antsirabe on the first day. She fell asleep not long after leaving Tana but woke up 45 minutes later and spent the rest of the journey telling us, in no uncertain terms, that she did not want to go on holiday. Two and a half hours of listening to "I don't want to go to Antsirabe, turn the car around and go back home" felt a whole lot longer! Thankfully things improved after that.

Thoroughly enjoying her holiday after the initial protest!

Easter weekend is somewhat of a party in Madagascar, especially 'Picnic Monday' when everyone has the day off and makes the most of the sunshine. In Antsirabe most of the population head to Lake Andraikiba (described in the guide book as picturesque and peaceful) so we chose to give it a miss and comtinue on to Lake Tritriva, which was as stunningly beautiful as we had been told. We drove back to find that the road had turned into a sea of people. Fortunately, a policeman decided to help us and gave directions to avoid the worst of the crowds. It made a nice change to have dealings with the police that didn't involve a long wait and phone calls by the side of the road as they try to extract money from us!

Lake Tritriva, which from this viewpoint looks like a map of Africa

We were not looking forward to trying to make our way through the crowds on the road

Around lunchtime we headed south to Ranomafana. A combination of potholes and revellers meant the journey was very slow and we got there in time to put a sleeping Bethan into bed and eat dinner in our hotel room.

A smaller scale picnic at the side of the RN7 

While in Ranomafana we visited the National park, firstly for a night walk, where we saw some chameleons and the nocturnal Greater Dwarf Lemur.

Sleeping Chameleon

Short-horned Chameleon

The next day we visited the park again and this time we saw Red-Fronted Brown Lemurs, a Red Bellied Lemur and the endangered Golden Brown Lemur. We also saw a very cool Leaf-tailed Gecko and many interesting insects.

                                    

                                                  Red Bellied Lemur

Leaf-tailed Gecko

Golden Bamboo Lemur

While in Ranomafana we wanted to visit the thermal baths, which the town was originally built around. The bridge across the river was in disrepair so we waded through the river only to find the baths were closed for cleaning. We did manage to put our feet in a shallow pool of thermal water though and, at 38 degrees Celsius, we thought maybe swimming would have been too hot anyway! Instead we explored the town and walked through the rainforest again,

We opted to wade through the river rather than balance on the log carrying Bethan

The thermal pool looked like a lovely place to spend the day if it had been open!

Game of Pooh Sticks in Ranomafana National Park

Finding Frogs in the rainforest

After Ranomafana we stopped at a private nature reserve (Ialatsara Lemur Camp) for the night. The owner, Daniel, has set up his own camp and protected an area of the forest. He has done an amazing job of it and we all enjoyed staying there. In the evening he showed us the Brown Mouse Lemurs living just next to the camp and during a 3 hour hike the next morning, we found Eastern Lesser Bamboo Lemurs, Red bellied Lemurs, Milne-Edwards' Sifakas and Small Tooth Sportive Lemurs. The guides were clearly not used to Vazahas (foreigners!) with toddlers and treated us as they do everyone who comes to visit the forest. If the lemurs are somewhere unreachable they hack a path through the undergrowth and clamber up the side of the mountain - not so easy whilst carrying a 3 year old!

Matt trying to get Bethan through the gaps Marcel had created with his hacking device!

Milne-Edwards' Sifaka

Sportive Lemur 

Milne-Edwards' Sifaka and Sportive Lemur

Bethan loved it at Daniel's place because there are 3 dogs and 7 cats living there. She spent most of dinner and breakfast tormenting the poor cats. This was one of the highlights of the holiday for her.

Tormenting 'Tap Le Porte' the cat

Spotted this park on the way home so broke up the journey for an hours playing

On our way home, we broke up the journey with an overnight stay at Madalief, just south of Antsirabe. It is a hotel that has been set up to raise funding for the orphanage run by the owners and provide work for single mothers in the area. It is a very beautiful place, with a play area which Bethan thoroughly enjoyed and the best food we have eaten in Madagascar.
http://www.madalief.nl

Madalief Guest House

Frustrations

We were told before coming here that after a few months of living in a new country, life often becomes difficult for a while, when the initial excitement of experiencing a new culture wears off. We haven't experienced the symptoms of culture shock that we were warned about but there have been difficulties and frustrations recently. We have shared some the positive aspects of living in Tana and good times that we've had here so it's only right to tell you about the things that aren't so great!

Enjoying rainy Madagascar

We live in a northern suburb of Tana, with decent-sized supermarkets,a big outdoor market, swimming pools, an excellent English-speaking church and the airport all within ten minutes of relatively fast-moving traffic (most of the time). This means that we don't need to venture into the city centre, where the roads are completely unsuitable for the number of vehicles that use them. With all the rain in the last few months, many of the roads are now full of potholes. In some places they span the width of the road so even areas where the traffic used to be OK are now gridlocked. Some drivers will crawl over them or weave around them, while others take advantage of the lack of rules on the road by using pavements, going through petrol stations or simply driving down the lane of on-coming traffic! Anything goes here and it's every driver for themselves so it is mayhem on the roads in Tana.

Oncoming traffic 

The first few times of crawling through Tana, doing 10km in 2 hours, is fine as it gives you the opportunity to take in the new sights around you and watch children entertain themselves with a tin can at the side of the road. Now, though, the idea of sitting in Tana traffic and having yet another policeman stop us for half an hour, demanding things that we cannot provide is just too frustrating to go out on a day trip. Unfortunately, most places worth visiting here involve driving through the city so we just end up staying at home. Living in a third world country, there aren't the opportunities that are available in England so we do miss being able to take Bethan to a children's playgroup (although she does go to her friends' houses every week), or to a museum or the zoo for example. Compared to our lifestyle in England, we do feel a bit isolated here with just a few possible activities to do out of the house each week. However, we have everything we need and we are fortunate to be able to enjoy the warm weather, swimming pools and to be part of the missionary community that live near us.

Watch out for potholes!

Becki has been going to Malagasy and French lessons most days for the last month and outside of those lessons, she has been at home (locked in the guest bedroom) with her notes and the computer, as she uses this time to improve both languages. In case you hadn't heard, the smaller MAF aircraft (which Becki flies) had its engine removed and sent to France for investigation after an oil pressure problem developed in December. The lessons have been beneficial and her Malagasy has come on impressively quickly. Unfortunately her tutor only works alternate months so these lessons will stop at the end of February. While it is definitely a good use of this time, when there isn't much that she can do at work, it has been frustrating that Becki hasn't been able to do what we came here to do. It is probably made more difficult as it came after a busy period in November and December when she was flying every day and getting a great deal of satisfaction from her work. Hopefully March will see the return of the engine and Becki will be able to see the benefit of having this enforced time on the ground by being able to talk more confidently with passengers. Speaking Malagasy is important for her as many outside of Tana don't speak French.

Bethan "helping" Becki learn Malagasy words

This weekend we were given the keys to our new house. We are moving just up the road to a house that is nearly identical to our current one inside but with a smaller garden that needs a lot of work. Living in another family's house made it easy when we first arrived as we didn't need to find furniture and just kept on the staff that work in the house but we have been looking forward to having our own home for a while now. It will be strange for us (especially Bethan) to be in another house and it will no doubt take time to make it feel like home.

New house on the same compound 

Front garden 

The weather has been unusual for the last 2 months. We were told that it is usually very hot at this time of year with rain showers in the afternoon, except when there are cyclones around, when its more cloudy, However, since Christmas its been very cloudy and extremely wet. Tana is very flooded at the moment and thousands of people have been affected.

Rain, Rain and more rain

Over 16,000 people displaced from their homes

Finally, we really enjoyed having Philip and Antonia visit us for a few days last week and are very excited about our friend Ruth coming to stay in May. We are also starting to look ahead to July/August when we will be back in England on furlough to visit our supporters.